Three Times and Out | Page 2

IT STARTED
"England has declared war on Germany!"
We were working on a pumphouse, on the Columbia River, at Trail,
British Columbia, when these words were shouted at us from the door
by the boss carpenter, who had come down from the smelter to tell us
that the news had just come over the wire.
Every one stopped work, and for a full minute not a word was spoken.
Then Hill, a British reservist who was my work-mate, laid down his
hammer and put on his coat. There was neither haste nor excitement in
his movements, but a settled conviction that gave me a queer feeling. I
began to argue just where we had left off, for the prospect of war had
been threshed out for the last two days with great thoroughness. "It will
be settled," I said. "Nations cannot go to war now. It would be suicide,
with all the modern methods of destruction. It will be settled by a war
council--and all forgotten in a month."
Hill, who had argued so well a few minutes ago and told us all the
reasons he had for expecting war with Germany, would not waste a
word on me now. England was at war--and he was part of England's
war machine.
"I am quitting, George," he said to the boss carpenter, as he pulled his
cap down on his head and started up the bank.
That night he began to drill us in the skating-rink.
I worked on for about a week, but from the first I determined to go if
any one went from Canada. I don't suppose it was all patriotism. Part of
it was the love of adventure, and a desire to see the world; for though I
was a steady-going carpenter chap, I had many dreams as I worked
with hammer and saw, and one of them was that I would travel far and
see how people lived in other countries. The thought of war had always
been repellent to me, and many an argument I had had with the German
baker in whose house I roomed, on the subject of compulsory military
training for boys. He often pointed out a stoop-shouldered,

hollow-chested boy who lived on the same street, and told me that if
this boy had lived in Germany he would have walked straighter and
developed a chest, instead of slouching through life the way he was
doing. He and his wife and the grown-up daughter were devoted to
their country, and often told us of how well the working-people were
housed in Germany and the affairs of the country conducted.
But I think the war was as great a surprise to them as to us, and
although the two women told us we were foolish to go to fight--it was
no business of ours if England wanted to get into a row--it made no
difference in our friendly relations, and the day we left Clara came to
the station with a box of candy. I suppose if we had known as much
then as we do now about German diplomacy, we shouldn't have eaten it,
but we only knew then that Clara's candy was the best going, and so we
ate it, and often wished for more.
I have since heard, however, of other Germans in Canada who knew
more of their country's plans, and openly spoke of them. One of these,
employed by the Government, told the people in the office where he
worked that when Germany got hold of Canada, she would straighten
out the crooked streets in our towns and not allow shacks to be built on
the good streets, and would see to it that houses were not crowded
together; and the strangest part of it is that the people to whom he
spoke attached no importance whatever to his words until the war came
and the German mysteriously disappeared.
* * *
I never really enlisted, for we had no recruiting meetings in Trail before
I left. We went to the skating-rink the first night, about fifteen of us,
and began to drill. Mr. Schofield, Member of the Provincial Parliament,
and Hill were in charge, and tested our marksmanship as well. They
graded us according to physical tests, marksmanship, and ability to pick
up the drill, and I was quite pleased to find I was Number "One" on the
list.
There was a young Italian boy named Adolph Milachi, whom we called
"Joe," who came to drill the first night, and although he could not speak

much English, he was determined to be a soldier. I do not know what
grudge little Joe had against the Germans, whether it was just the love
of adventure which urged him on, but he overruled all objections to his
going and left with